American beauty: Painting life as it would like to be

An extraordinarily prolific artist, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) produced some 4,000 paintings in his lifetime, not including a prodigious quantity of commissioned editorial, commercial, and advertising work. His death in 1978 was regarded the loss of a national icon, an artist who, like no other, celebrated the American Dream.

Shunning experimentation and avant-garde techniques in favor of effective composition and relatable subject matter, Rockwell created...